If you are registered to vote, then you have unspeakable power – the power to transform your city, our state and our nation.
On Nov. 6, voters will have an opportunity to decide who will be president of the United States, governor of Indiana and the occupants of other important state and local offices that have an impact on our lives everyday.
Local community and civil rights groups strongly encourage voters to get involved during this election.
“There is a lot at stake,” said Chrystal Ratcliffe, president of the Greater Indianapolis Branch of the NAACP. “Now more than ever, it is important that people get out and exercise their right to vote.”
Throughout the year the NAACP has conducted voter awareness and registration drives, while also listening to the concerns of residents. Ratcliffe said there is a serious need to elect individuals who will help find solutions related to issues such as economic development, criminal justice, education, and civil rights and voting rights.
“We also need to look at health care, because we have so many people who are still without it, including students and children,” Ratcliffe said. “When you look at economic development and health care, they are tied together.”
Joe Slash, president of the Indianapolis Urban League, noted that every vote is needed because some candidates are in very close campaigns that might be decided by a small number of votes.
For instance, polls show that the presidential election between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, as well as the Indiana U.S. Senate race with Joe Donnelly and Richard Mourdock, are in a statistical dead heat and running neck and neck in the polls.
“If you think your vote is not important, just wait until you see someone lose an election by one vote,” Slash said. “There’s been too many times in history that elections have been decided by very close votes, and those who stayed at home could have had an influence on the outcome.”
Voting came at a price
Voters, especially African-Americans and other minorities, are being warned to never take the opportunity to vote for granted.
“Your franchise of the right to vote is second to none,” Slash said. “Too many people in today’s generation don’t realize that we were once denied that right.”
With the passage of Fourteenth Amendment in 1868, Blacks were finally made United States citizens and Black men were officially given the right to vote (women, regardless of race, were not eligible to vote until the Nineteenth Amendment was passed in 1920).
Yet, some states, mostly in the South, developed special laws that created obstacles designed to disqualify African-Americans from voting, such as poll taxes and literacy tests. In addition, terrorist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan used outright violence to intimidate Blacks from voting or running for public office.
As a result, thousands of brave activists, Black and white, from the Jim Crow era and the civil rights movement, sacrificed their freedom, their jobs and often their lives in the fight to hold America to its promise of the right to vote for each and every citizen.
Ratcliffe cited the three Selma-to-Montgomery marches in Alabama in 1965 as an example of what had to be endured in order for minorities to have basic voting rights.
Hundreds of nonviolent marchers were attacked and beaten by state and local police during the marches, which drew national attention to the need for voting rights and led to the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which outlawed discriminatory voting practices and provided stronger enforcement of rights laws.
“Historically, we weren’t allowed to vote because we were considered second class citizens, and voting rights came from us having to go through a bloody battle,” Ratcliffe said. “We have come a long way with the Voting Rights Act.”
Current shenanigans
Ratcliffe and Slash noted that while it is important to remember the challenges of the past, voters must also be ready to deal with the challenges of the present.
“It’s a new Jim Crow now, and a lot of these laws disenfranchise the vote in a lot of ways,” Ratcliffe said.
Slash agreed, adding, “There are a lot of efforts to turn back the clock on civil rights and a renewed emphasis on states rights, which got us in the struggle in the first place.”
In recent years, for example, voting rights activists have expressed concerns about stringent voter ID laws that have been passed in several states, including Indiana. Supporters of such laws say that they are needed to prevent voter fraud, while opponents charge that they can make voting more challenging for those who might have had difficulties obtaining ID, such as low income voters, the elderly and minorities.
Nationally, Ratcliffe and Slash noted, federal civil rights laws led to an increase in minority voters and elected officials, but legislators in some states are redrawing congressional and legislative districts to reduce that political strength.
Currently, the U.S. Supreme Court is reviewing a key provision in the Voting Rights Act that would require federal permission to change voting laws. Rights activists are also concerned about the court’s 2010 ruling that gave special interest groups the right to spend unlimited amounts of money on political campaigns.
The Center for Responsive Politics has reported that since then, more than $840 million has been spent by “super” political action committees on campaigns.
“I really have a problem with that because it means powerful interests who have tons of money can buy our candidates, and therefore, our elections,” said Indianapolis voter Louis Thomas “The only way to keep the voice of the people from being drowned out is for all of us to vote.”
Locally, efforts have been made to provide voters with “satellite” polling locations that make it easier for them to vote early at a location that is closer to their residence than the county clerk’s office downtown. Advocates of early voting say it helps citizens avoid the possible logistical hassles of voting on Election Day.
However, when the satellite voting proposal has come up before the Marion County Election Board, it has been vetoed by its lone Republican member.
“What amazes me is how we can’t get people together to go and protest for the right to vote,” Ratcliffe said “If you have enough people involved you can change things.”
She also lamented what she has noticed is the small number of young adults involved in efforts to secure voting rights. Recently, the NAACP held a meeting for volunteers willing to help voters at polling places for $50 and free lunch. None of the attendees were under the age of 45.
“Our younger generation doesn’t see the need to fight for these things,” she said. “We have to look at ways to reach them and inspire them to take this mantle and move forward.”
Slash agrees, saying that if the importance of voting rights is not taught to youth, the past, with its limited voting opportunities could repeat itself.
“If the younger generation doesn’t pay attention we’ll have to start this civil rights fight all over again,” he said. “And the people of my generation don’t want to have to go through that again.”
Take this to the polls
Make sure you bring photo identification that meets the following requirements:
– Shows your name, which must conform to the name on your voter registration record; (conform does NOT mean identical)
– Shows your photograph
– Includes an expiration date indicating the document has not yet expired (or expired after Nov. 2, 2010, the date of the last General Election), except for certain military IDs; and was issued by the United States or the State of Indiana (a student ID from a public university is allowed, but not from a private institution).
NOTE: The address on your photo ID does NOT need to match the address on your voter registration record.
Last minute information:
Voters who have difficulty at the polls or have questions can notify the following organizations.
– Marion County Republican Party (317) 635-8881, Indyrepublicans.com
n Marion County Democratic Party (317) 637-3366, Marioncountydemocrats.org
For general election information, call the Marion County Election Board at (317) 327-VOTE or visit Indy.gov/election.
